 Okay, the House of Representatives on Wednesday began an investigation into the alleged non-remittance of contributions to the National Housing Fund. This non-remittance has resulted in the workers threatening to withdraw from the National Housing Fund. So we have our guest this morning that will be talking with us on the issue is a former deputy president, NLC, an industrial relations expert. I'm talking about Mr. Amici Asuguni. Good morning and welcome to the program. Good morning, thank you for having me. Give us a background to this happening, why the workers are threatening to withdraw from the scheme. Yes, I hope you can hear me clearly. Yes, I can. The National Housing Fund Act was actually put in place to favor workers and this scheme has been in place for decades and you know that when activity of this nature is employed to service the interests of workers, every worker will want a shater. Even at the country today, you know that inflation has eaten up the salaries of employees and therefore people who are still paying rent, they suffer more than the others and therefore whereby you are making contribution and it's not limited, it means that your right to assessing that fund has been restricted by the act of the employer. So that act on its left is a violation of that very act. Employers were clearly obliged, not at their discretion, to remit within a specific period which shouldn't be more than a week or two having to don't have such funds for workers and therefore employers have continued to use this money for their business, including government especially. So whereby you pay to pay salary for example, you have hinder workers of not just their salary but of their chances of getting that very low as it were and therefore workers are saying why did not and not remit in the case where you have paid a salary? You did not and you keep 2.5 of your contribution or whatever contribution some people would have improved their own to be without remitting it. So then it's a criminal phase and it's good National Assembly is carrying out the investigation but it's obvious such investigations shouldn't take long because we are talking about workers who have failed, we are talking about right of individuals and where employers choose to do otherwise. We believe that the right of workers should be protected because it's their money, the law is not telling the employer to pay for workers, the laws say workers should contribute from their own earning and whereby it should have been dotted not remitting it is like stealing from workers, for us it's unacceptable. How long has this been going on? You know it has been staggered if you measure a period of time you may cut off the crime before that moment. A lot of employers you know before now the law was compulsory for both public and private sectors and I had to point in 2022 where they carried out the law on a business facilitation act, business facilitation act of 2022 tried to open the window for private sectors not to compulsorily be involved in the scheme. In that case private employees are put on a, they are not optional, you can either choose to contribute or choose not to. The meaning that even though you are contributing you can opt out, the law allowed that having introduced this BFA in business facilitation act which amended which section 45 of the national housing fund to allow private sector employees to either join or not looking at the category of the work they do. Some of the private sectors they work for one month, they work for one year, they lost their job and then how do you transfer this body from one employer to another? It become a case because they are not even fitting where and you say you must contribute before you can accept the loan and the worker who will not even work for the six months before his contract is terminated, it means he has lost the opportunity to now allow the private sectors to determine whether to join or not so that right is actually open for private sector but for these people that we are referring to it has started as long ago when we have governors that can no longer pay salaries, people who were old salary in this country for one year, people who were old salary in this country for 18 months, situations like that you don't even talk about the remittance of the housing contribution, we are not talking about no payment of salary that should allow them to pay their pension, not just this deduction, worker-specific deduction equating the union dues, they pay to the union they affiliate to so we believe that any money deducted from workers is actually workers entitlement to invest it where the law says they should invest. Okay, so the benefit of contributing this money you're talking about taking loans, what other benefits come to the person who contributes and if for instance you lose your job or your organization stops contributing what happens to the one you have already contributed? Yes, the national housing fund scheme or other art is very very robust, it is robust to the extent that a worker is not assessing loans based on his own personal contribution, your contribution gives you right to assess loan so you may have contributed just one million but you can assess up to 10 to 15 million what he means then is that the contribution of the entire workforce in the country is not being brought to a pool whereby workers that are qualified, you know the law says you must contribute up to six months so that will give you already impression that six months contribution of the entire workforce is already in a pool for the first worker that we apply to get therefore they would have contributed millions of million including running into hundreds of millions allowing workers now to assess such money so every worker is entitled to assess more than you have in the account meaning you can assess the loan and you can repay them within a lengthy period of 30 years to solve the benefit for us is actually in favor of workers and then when your work terminates or in the case of retirement or incapacitation as the law specifies is for you not to apply for reform assuming you did not even assess any loan in the first place whatever you have contributed would have been invested and you get both your interest and your contribution upon retirement or as the case may be incapacitation that you need help as a matter of urgency so all of these provisions are made clear in the law to the extent that no worker loses anything the minimum is to get your refund and but the benefit is to get access to that loan meaning you are getting beyond your own money you contribute one million but you are giving 10 million so you must pay back at a very little or no interest to the extent that workers at the end of the day become owners of building in most cases you buy from government that is how you see government with lunch house in a state and it's open to these people to knock from their contribution assess that very facility depending on the cost and their man who are contributing so your category will tell you the kind of category of house you eventually have as a worker but it means to make a blue body a landlord yes what's the role of the federal mortgage bank right now uh what are they doing about it what's the quarrel with with them uh from the workers is it the government you're quarreling with or is it the federal government mortgage bank that you're talking to or who is responsible for all this I think the way it applies because I'm talking from the consultant point of view the way it applies now is workers have rights to assess their money that is not in doubt the major problem is the remittance which is not the prerogative of the mortgage bank mortgage bank is to receive therefore we don't have they don't think workers have problem the only problem they will have with mortgage will be the processes to assess the loan processes to get their refund which every financial institution must put realistic and transparent method in place for workers to either assess you or get your refund as the case may be but agitation that is stronger now is remit my money to where I will get my loan because if you don't remit my money you are restricting my right and privilege from assessing it because for you to assess that very money you must be a constant contributor to that fund and therefore withholding my contribution is as good as withholding my benefit which eventually deter the entire essence of the scheme in the first place this is a scheme that was introduced in fact 1992 and therefore you can we cannot afford to suffocate it at the expense of inability of government but from 1992 there surely must have been some contribution that was made can the workers at this point access it there's this quarrel with the federal mortgage bank banks already that they are not even sending alerts to the phone numbers of the people who have been contributing whether they have stopped or not I think it's still they are right to know what the balance in their account is as it were and federal mortgage bank is not doing it so don't you find that worrisome no cases cases of bank collapses are also part of the challenging but like I said that one is already taken care of by law because bank you know there are procedures and when a lot is not given even in our regular banking sometimes you face challenges not getting a lot not getting a lot has no effect to the amount you have it's just an update to getting you to know the amount that you would have contributed but every worker is looking beyond his actual contribution workers are looking for the purpose of contribution you are contributing to get additional benefit therefore the additional benefit is worth motivate these workers to pay I am paying like 2000 or 5000 every month to you but the time I'm going to assess this money I will assess them in millions so you're going to give me money contributed in Himo state you're going to give me money contributed from Bruno state so we're going to assess this money beyond the borders of my own contact so that is the most important if workers should rather for example in our own regular bank whereby you suffer not all these are lack differences or gaps you go back to the bank you have mortgage bank of federal government in all the state so you can apply you can apply you can go to the customer service to know why if everybody have their code you must have your contributing code your contributing number and once you go there and then start it they will know whether the problem is from the bank or from you that you have changed line and they are sending it to your old line and you're complaining that you're not getting it in your new line so you need to update your your data so for us some of these things can be resolvable but the major one is give me room so that my right will not be truncated and that is by limiting that which I am contributing eat it it apples on the in the case of pension in the case of pension workers will pay employers will pay and it is what you pay that they will invest for you waiting for the date of your retirement in cases like that you see that workers will pay their own because the law said deduct at source so employers are quick to deduct to reduce cost of their own business running their business but their own obligation to also contribute equivalent of that amount or higher in the case of the new law as a matter these employers will withhold their contribution they are from making it difficult for your expectation to be their life because some of these workers eventually disengaged from work and going into their camps you'll find out that the contribution of the employers is not part of your saving and that would have that would have negated the essence of making that contribution to wait for retirement because so all this money are meant to accrue interest so when you withdraw my money you withdraw my interest the day you're paying me are you paying me the actual or you're paying me with the current rate as the bank would have initiated these are some of the challenges okay I think the business they look tiny the threat now is to withdraw from the national housing fund because of these unremitted funds but are there other ways to pursue this thing for instance illegal is it can also be a legal matter because if money has been deducted from your salary for instance and paid and it's supposed to be paid somewhere and it is not paid it could be a matter for the courts are you also exploring that opportunity as well yes because government is involved and we all know workers are not in a hurry to taking government to court because we also see court as government and therefore except for cases of where there are no other options even a case of law you don't withdraw from law the threat they are making is to tell you that if you cannot improve me leave me as I am that is the that is interpretation of that threat if you cannot help the workers to get the purpose in which this contribution was introduced in the first place then a lot of them end their salary and pay their rent because you cannot say you mean way for me at the end of the day you deduct part of my money and it's not something any good to me so we believe that part of the options is what national assembly is doing because they made the law national assembly can also amend the law looking at what is happening now so that even public sector will also be optional man a worker will believe he can tolerate the bureaucracy and all of these guys they are going to introduce you can suffer it and tolerate to the end those workers will continue those workers that believe that they can plan their income and pay their rent as they go on to their retirement and they have a good plan for themselves don't forget you are saving 2.5 of my money to enable me assessment because of the poor salary we we have in the country where societies where salaries are equivalent to the living standard of workers you don't even need to go that far because workers will have saved money from their income to actually buy these houses and live properly but in this in the fear in the fear we have in this country whereby salary is you can imagine the 30,000 negotiated two years ago or so and they know that now even with the current ongoing processes to put a new wage in place inflation is already telling you that whatever you are bringing it's almost eating up so we are also living in fears when it comes to economy stability and that is what is affecting to have this is so I simply believe that workers may continue to enjoy because that is the only thing they will get from government we government are selling house to you they will not sell it like the private sectors we do so it's cheaper and affordable for workers and therefore I believe the mortgage bank exercise on behalf of workers is this something they can work with going to court yes I also encourage that it takes court to address law and therefore one of the best options to address cases like this is to ask court to pronounce the right of workers as against the employers that have refused to remit by the time court direct and also put sanctions that those withholding these deductions shall pay certain interest on the deduction as the moons depending on the number of moons you withdraw this money it also have the workers that even though the money is not limited it's already creating more revenue for you so in one way or the other they will find a better approach without violating the law also on the side of workers okay thank you so much mr amici asuguni for coming on the show and giving us your thoughts and explaining more on the issue thank you very much okay that was mr amici asuguni former deputy president nlc an industrial relations expert talking to us about the worrisome issue of workers contributing money but the money not being remitted to the appropriate quarters for housing and that is how we are wrapping up the show this morning but remember what bill gates said it is fine to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure every successful person has said that if you don't learn how to fail you may not be able to succeed so remember these words of bill gates as we wrap up today it's fine to celebrate success but it's more important to heed the lessons of failure let's do it again same time tomorrow my name is nyam gul aghaji bye for now